If You Were To Leave
by Mindswander
Summary: It's Natasha's pain they hear through the com system, but perhaps they should have been listening more carefully.
1. Chapter 1

Thor can hear Natasha's string of curse words through the com system as he surveys the area around him.

He had been dragged off a ways away from the others to ensure that no rogue bots had escaped though the main bot had been destroyed and no longer was sending out orders. However, they were unsure of what the remaining ones would do without direction so Thor had followed the last stronghold about a block and a half from the center of the action.

Eyeing the sea of bot bodies one last time, Thor makes his way back to his teammates. He wishes to make sure that Natasha is alright as the Captain has called in the medvac to check up on her.

The Asgardian's face wrinkles in disdain as he approaches and goes to pass one of the decommissioned bots. They're gun metal in color with one arm possessing a series of crude imitations of talons but nonetheless razor sharp while the other is formed like a giant claw with sharp blades, similar to scissors, in between each grasping piece. They're large, strong, vicious, but remarkably quiet.

As Thor passes the bot he reacts as split second too late as the supposedly destroyed object pops to life and uses its claw to clamp onto the left side of Thor's chest. The searing pain is immediate and radiates throughout his body, but he only grunts as he wields Mjolnir and bludgeons the foul object into ruin. The claw loosens and drops Thor to the pavement as it falls back and away from him.

Mjolnir still in hand, he stifles a hiss of pain as the front part of his armor comes apart and falls off with a clatter. The pain is sharp and intense, but Thor uses the alertness it brings to assess his injury. It is not spurting blood so it has not hit major arteries, but it is nonetheless deep and bleeding quite profusely. Using the bit of magic he knows, though he has never been overly fond of it, a strip of cloth winks into existence, slithers across his skin and binds itself around Thor's midsection to help staunch the flow. The action makes Thor clench his fists, but he deems the situation handled and using a spark from Mjolnir, he reattaches the front part of his armor to the other so his teammates will not worry. Natasha is much more fragile than he and the focus needs to be on her.

Extracting himself from the ground nearly makes Thor reconsider this thought, but he pushes through and goes to the others. When he arrives he sees them standing over Natasha amidst the wreckage and approaches slowly.

The Hulk notices him first and sneers at Thor. The Asgardian half smiles back while silently hoping this is not one of the days the Hulk is feeling playful as he has been wont to do on many occasions.

"There you are Vidal Sassoon. We were starting to wonder if they ran off with you," Tony quips after noticing Thor's presence too.

Thor stops himself from chuckling in order to not disturb his wound more than necessary, but the lack of response must strike the Captain as strange because he shifts his gaze to the god and eyes him critically. Thor smiles back at him in a way that he hopes it does not show his pain. "I am still very much here, but how are you fairing Lady Natasha?"

"Fucking brilliant," Natasha says through her teeth. "They're scratches, barely there really, but the Captain insists the medvac come for me." Natasha turns her steely gaze onto Steve. "Your concern is more painful."

"It is just a precaution," he replies simply. Her mouth twitches, but she says nothing else.

As they wait the last few minutes for the medvac to arrive, the helicopter sounds close now, Thor's head begins to feel light and his thoughts scattered. He cants his head to the side a few times and focuses on Mjolnir's power humming through him in an attempt to bring things back into focus.

It's not working. There's a short gap in Thor's vision and then the whole scene appears distant to his body as the medics takes a cursory examination of Natasha, deems her okay, and they all file into the helicopter with a now very naked Bruce.

During their trip Natasha keeps slapping the medic's hands away as he goes to attend to her wounds further while she insists she will take care of it after the debriefing with Fury at the tower. Rebuffed for a final time, the medic gives up and a hush descends upon them. Thor is quite thankful, not for the first time, that conversation is often minimal after battles and he does not have to engage with anyone. It seems too difficult a task.

Upon arrival to the tower, the group tiredly trudges down to the conference room to go over the events of the day. Unlike the others however, it's not just exhaustion and it takes Thor a considerably higher amount of effort to just follow them and simultaneously appear completely normal as Steve begins to run through their response to the threat.

Time drags on and Thor can barely focus. The metallic tang is strong in his mouth and swallowing the bitter substance makes his stomach roll with the burning ache in his side, but he says nothing about it.

Action…movement…focus. Thor's eyes attempt to roll in his head.

_Focus._

With this thought he sets his hammer upon the table, but Thor is immediately aware of the egregious error he has made when he lets go of his weapons handle. Without Mjolnir's force directly coursing through him he's weak, so incredibly weak he is surprised he is still standing. Leaning against the conference table heavily now, Thor only just has the mind to stick his hand into the slight gap in his armor. When he pulls it back out it's slick with blood and he absently slides his hand across the table to brace himself as the world goes fuzzy and dark at the edges.

"I—," he manages before the darkness closes in and he collapses knocking one of the rolling chairs aside as he falls to the ground._

**Author's Note: **

**I'd like you to know I am definitely still writing my other chapter fic on here, but my brain won't shut up about this idea so I decided to just get it out so it's less distracting.**

**Furthermore, this story is based off a prompt I swear I saw on avengerskink once and if you do see some version of this idea, Thor gets injured blah blah blah, let me know because I can't find it for the life of me. If not, I totally made up the fact that I saw this idea and I'm secretly filling a prompt I maybe meant to write down one day. Ooops haha.**

**Also, this is part 1 of two parts.**

**Hope you enjoyed it.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: So this has turned into a three chapter thing. Whoops.**

**Thank you to Whisper Your Name, I Know Love Hurts 2010, Guest, Margaret and mudpuddledemon for your reviews! :)**

**EvansBlue: Well she does have a pretty big chunk of the pieces in this chapter, but it's also basically just what I went with so I could post it lol. I'll probably change it at some point however.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

In the half second the others are immobile with confusion, Natasha springs into action, sliding herself up and over the table in one swift movement though her wounds protest loudly.

Dropping to her knees at his side, she unclips his breast plate the way she's seen him do it so many times before and throws it out of the way. Armor removed, she can see the piece of material wrapped around his middle is soaked in his blood, but she can't see the wound and cuts it away with a flick of the wrist with the knife from her hidden belt pocket. Bile rises in her throat as she finally sees the damage Thor has sustained; she can see the bone, torn muscle…an organ? It is one thing entirely to see such grievous injuries on those she doesn't know and another to see them on…

She applies pressure to the wound which is only slowly leaking blood now and growls, "Help me damnit!" Blood completely coats her hands as she accidentally moves and one of her fingers slips into the torn flesh. She shutters lightly at the sensation, but soon Steve is next to her applying pressure of his own before utter chaos breaks out.

Behind them Bruce only has a moment to realize he's about to hulk out before it's upon him.

"Shit!" Tony yells. He's not afraid of the Hulk, but what is the point of this now? "Now, big guy—"

The Hulk roars in his face but Tony holds his ground before the other crosses the room and paces. He smashes a window and roars again.

Natasha and Steve are watching the Hulk closely but still flicker their eyes to Fury who is screaming into his phone for that helicopter to "come back right the fuck now. We don't have time!"

The Hulk is pacing and smashing, Fury is growling into his phone in a rage, and Clint and Tony are rooted to their spots on the floor waiting.

Natasha worries at how thready and fast Thor's pulse is under her fingertips.

To her left Steve is sweating and his pulse pounds visibly in the vein standing out on his neck. "Hecan'tdiehecan'tdiehecan'tdiehecan'tdie…" His quiet muttering focuses Natasha back onto the body before her until a medic is on her right and urging her out of the way. She has to grab Steve's shoulders to bring him back and force him to move away too.

They all look on helplessly, even the Hulk, as they medics assess Thor and rush to prepare him to leave.

As soon as Thor is on a stretcher and heading to the medvac Steve is moving to follow but the director blocks his way. "No, Captain, you stay here."

"Sir, you don't understand. I—"

"I am _ordering_ you to stay here," Fury commands with as much authority in his voice that he can muster. Natasha doesn't miss the quick flicker of gratitude in Steve's eyes before he dashes to follow the medics. Steve is a soldier and responds to his superiors. It's truly the only thing that's keeping him from tearing a path to cling to Thor's side she's sure.

A strange silence descends on them in the wake of Thor's departure and Natasha shifts not without slight difficulty. She was able to ignore it before but the harsh stinging in her legs is apparent once again as she glances at the blood on her hands, turning crusty and brown at the edges. She frowns hard at the sight before Steve whirls toward them, posture rigid and eyes bright with conflicting emotion.

"What happened?" he demands in a tone she's never heard from him before. It's meant to sound like rage she suspects, but to her it conveys barely concealed panic and she cocks her head to the side. It's peculiar seeing him like this as he has proven, much to her surprise in the past, to hold his emotions relatively close to the cuff.

To her left she sees Tony open his mouth to reply and Natasha can just imagine the retort about to come whizzing out like a shot. Tony's tongue is still sharp in stressful scenarios and the tension is clear on him with the tilt of his head and the squint of his eyes. Natasha wants to deflect, but Clint beats her to it.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Clint answers simply. This seems to derail whatever Tony has to say, but Steve looks thoroughly unimpressed with the answer, although she knows he's heaping all the blame onto his shoulders alone.

"I should have—"

"You couldn't have," interrupts Bruce in a voice laced with exhaustion. The Hulk had melted away the second Thor left the room leaving a tired Banner in his wake. "Thor has a stubborn streak a mile wide sometimes." A smile flickers across his lips and Natasha can feel hers responding in kind. Yes, he sure is. She distinctly remembers one time he was trying to put together one of Tony's robots after he had disassembled it much to Tony's chagrin (she still doesn't know quite why), but with every offer of help from either Bruce or Tony he would wave them away with a grumble and a muttered curse in Asgardian until they gave up. Two days later he brought it back, fully intact with a few modifications, improvements if they were being honest, and Tony had only scowled and said thanks before he disappeared.

She wonders idly what memory is crossing Bruce's mind as she smiles to herself.

Her smile quickly fades.

"I'm going to clean up now," she says finally, giving them all one more cursory glance. She doesn't like the feel of her teammate's blood on her hands.

When no one answers she shrugs and leaves the room.

There isn't anything to do now besides wait.

* * *

A day and a half later of Fury running interference so the Avengers would leave Thor to heal properly without disturbance they are allowed to see him.

As they file in Clint twitches at the sight of Thor looking so vulnerable in the hospital bed; enormous, but entirely vulnerable when he offers no reaction to their arrival.

"Now," his doctor says. Her voice demands attention though she is petite and has a kind face framed by wavy auburn hair. "Thor is well on his way to being completely healed. From our estimates, based on the rate he has displayed, he may even be scar free in two or three days. He is really quite remarkable." Her voice has a trace of awe Clint doesn't like. Awe and interest in his life has often led down a bad road. "Nevertheless, he has yet to regain consciousness. You may talk to him though. His brain activity is very high and though he may not remember, he will most likely hear you. You are as close as he has to family here I'm told." She looks to each of them and Clint shuffles under her scrutiny. His little slice of comfort they have so painstakingly formed was nearly completely altered and she's casually throwing around ideas of his recovery and the word family as if it's the most simple thing in the world. "Unless you have any questions…" her voice trails off, but Steve merely says thank you ma'am before she takes it as her cue to depart.

They all edge closer to Thor's slumbering form now that she's left and watch him silently.

Tony is the first to speak. "He looks just like sleeping beauty. Maybe you should kiss him Steve." The gasp and huff of air Clint hears lets him know that Natasha has elbowed him into silence. Steve for his part, Clint notices, doesn't rise to the bait, but instead is completely flushed and pulling on the hem of his red t-shirt.

"Hello Thor," Steve says softly. He sounds unsure of himself, but continues. "That was sure some stunt you pulled by not telling us you were injured."

"Yeah," Clint chimes in. "The Hulk wasn't very impressed either and you know we shouldn't be pissing him off if we can help it." Bruce chuckles beside him, but Clint knows he's right. Bruce has outright said he's felt the Hulk's confusion, worry, and irritation at the back of his brain. Tony had given him a curious look when he had said so and maybe had poked him with a few sharp things, but other than that, it was simply accepted as fact.

"If you could wake up right now that would be great. I have things for you to answer, one being where has RNT56 gone? I feel like you might know the answer to that question," Tony quips and pokes Thor's foot, but there is no response. Tony shrugs. "I really want to know though."

Natasha laughs lightly before leaning over Thor, practically draping herself over him without touching somehow and takes a few strands of his hair between her fingers. "When you wake up," she says lowly. Clint sees the others lean in slightly to hear the rest. "…I'm going to kill you," she finishes and there's a smile in her voice as she gives his hair a sharp tug. Clint immediately scoffs and starts laughing with Bruce and Tony quickly following suit.

"Natasha!" Steve exclaims. His cheeks are mildly red and he looks bewildered by her actions and his teammates' laughter. Natasha shoots him one of her grins, the one only reserved for them, and Steve's mouth twists and scrunches before he tilts his head up toward the ceiling and half smiles.

"There you go. Wouldn't want your star spangled cat suit to get in a twist," Tony comments. Steve just shakes his head and looks back down at Thor's sleeping face.

Clint's sure if Thor was awake he'd appreciate the joke.

* * *

Two more days pass.

Three.

Thor is completely healed, but still hasn't woken up.

* * *

Steve has been exercising almost nonstop since Thor's injury and even now his muscles have that subtle burning ache as he makes his way down the corridor to Thor's room in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sick bay. Thor has this whole section more or less to himself and despite the staff's annoyance, the Avengers have been given around the clock clearance to visit their friend which is how, well after midnight, Steve is coming to see him now.

To Steve's chagrin he has been plagued by nightmares of his friends dying in increasingly creative, absurd, and incredibly violent ways when he has fallen asleep in the tower on the couch, in Tony's lab, in his bed, and at the dinner table during the first six days. It was unpleasant, bordering on rude in some situations, so instead he's picked up a routine. He works out almost to the point of collapse before dragging himself to Thor's side. If he does sleep here (which he does most nights), his mind is gratefully blank or feels a lingering contentment when he wakes at sunrise and excuses himself.

As Steve approaches Thor in the bed, he is as perfectly still and in the same position as when he first saw him; his breathing is slow and even, lulling Steve into a bodily calm though his mind won't stop racing from where he sits in a chair beside him.

He couldn't save Bucky, who was just out of reach before he fell. Seventy six years between then and now, though he's only been awake for six, and still sometimes his guilt is hard to swallow.

He just…he can't always comprehend it. He had been given his abilities as Captain America for a reason and yet he didn't manage to save the one person who meant the most to him in this world in more ways than anyone could understand. That moment in time defies logic, especially in the dark of the night with none of the brightness of his teammates, his family, to distract him.

And yet, Steve chuckles bitterly as he scrubs a hand over his face, here he is again. Thor he can touch, he is alive, so alive underneath his fingertips, but is every bit as unreachable as Bucky had been all those years ago.

He doesn't think he can do it again; to lose someone etched on his heart as surely as the serum runs through his veins. It will ruin him.

And what will it do to his team on top of that? They all need each other in ways they don't dare admit, but Steve can see it, can feel it in the strength of the unseen bond that runs between them. There are dynamics at play Steve doesn't understand, but doesn't question and it is without a doubt that they need Thor. They truly do.

Steve is selfish, he thinks, but he needs him more.

These two weeks have slowly been driving him mad.

* * *

"Odinsleep," Tony says one night after a particularly annoying battle with robotic flying monkeys.

"Odinsleep?" Clint repeats with a question in his voice.

"Yeah. I was reading up on Norse mythology…Don't give me that face. That's the best we've got right now," Tony growls as Natasha fixes him with a dubious look.

"It's called _Odin_sleep, Tony."

"I'm aware Natasha," he says with a hiss, "but he is Odin's son so who says—"

"But—"

"Can you just hear me out?" Tony grumbles and Bruce watches as Natasha smiles behind her hand. Sometimes he knows she just loves riling him up.

"I don't entirely understand it, not a word Natasha, don't even blink, but I gather that Odin has to recharge his batteries at some point, especially after fierce battles. Maybe the same thing has happened to Thor."

"Sounds like you have a great grasp on the subject," Clint muses while pushing his sausage across his plate. Tony scowls at him in return.

Bruce sighs, feeling Steve mirror his action at his side. "How long will this last?" Steve questions finally.

"I don't know. He could wake up tomorrow, now, or not in our lifetimes. Who am I to say?" Tony answers truthfully and Bruce can tell it bothers Tony much more than his tone let's on.

Steve inhales sharply next to him.

"Great," Natasha mumbles and gulps down the contents in her wine glass.

Bruce presses on the vein throbbing in his forehead and suddenly these last three and a half weeks are that much more terrifying.

* * *

Clint always visits at high noon when the nurses are changing shifts and he can come and go without interruption (he leaves nights for Natasha. He knows without talking to her that that's when she visits though he's still sure she would never admit such sentimentality).

Perched on a chair beside the bed, he tells Thor about the events he's missed in the tower and Tony's continued ranting and raving about his missing bot. He tells him how Steve spends most of his time in the gym, how Natasha reads her books, but really isn't concentrating. He tells him how even the Hulk had to have his own sort of therapy that involved a heavily watched destructive play in the woods far away from everyone just so Banner could rest easier.

His knuckles are white where he grips the chair, but he tells him how he lost a brother once and really doesn't want to do it again.

"You're really an asshole sometimes," Clint whispers and gives Thor's arm a firm squeeze.

He slips out of the room before anyone even realizes he was there.

* * *

Natasha wanders toward her destination so quietly that the evening nurse on duty a corridor away doesn't even register her passing. It's her habit to come here every night, but she supposes the others, besides Clint, must be confused as to when she visits because she finds that the others look at her quizzically sometimes, but they don't push and she doesn't tell. It doesn't matter to her what they think on this occasion anyway, it only matters that she goes.

As she passes more empty rooms, Natasha finds herself wondering once again as she does sometimes when her eyes are lazily skimming a book, but not really comprehending the words before her, if her relationship with Thor is as baffling as she imagines it must seem to her teammates and S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel that are inclined to rumors. She'll admit, and has the one time Tony prompted when he was hammered, that she let Thor in faster than everyone else she was getting to know. Not perfectly of course, she doubts that will ever happen, even with Clint who knows more than she'd like, but certainly faster than she had anticipated.

It was his honesty, she thinks, that made it so easy. He was not always thrilled about answering what she questioned him on (anything to keep it about him), but he'd answer anyway. He told her about his childhood, about his banishment, about just about everything Natasha could think of and more. Sure, he's not perfect. He's stubborn and sometimes, even now, he acts without thinking, but he was forthcoming and he trusted her. It wasn't until she found herself in the midst of telling him a bit about her past with veiled twisted words that she stopped, blinked hard, and wondered when the hell he'd manage to trick her into trusting him some too. At her halted words he had merely smiled and nudged for her to continue. To her surprise she did.

It only got worse from there. The others started to worm their way in too and Natasha's skin was starting to itch from the uncomfortable comfort she was starting to feel around them. This was the sort of sentimentality she knew was dangerous and she was slowly trying to pull away but then…

Acid.

Of course that crazed man had to make robots that shot acid. Along with the acid, the scheme seemed to be divide and conquer, and despite their best efforts, they had all managed to be separated in a bid to protect themselves from the substance. It wouldn't bode well for any of them to be hit and that's how she found herself alone in a building slowly being corned by one of the things until she finally didn't manage to get out of the way in time.

The acid landed on her right side and immediately began to eat away at her suit as she fired off three shots effectively disabling the bot permanently, but the damage was already done. The acid was at her skin now and a burning pain flared in her side that made her hiss as she ripped her com unit out of her ear and threw it to the floor before stomping on it for good measure. The acid was through the top layer of skin, burning away and through her. Natasha was in agony but she didn't want them to hear it. She didn't want them to hear her die and maybe get themselves killed in the process. She was human. She was expendable. Someone help her.

She doubled over and groaned through another bright burst of pain as the substance ate away at her muscle. She didn't dare touch it to stave off the pain. She wouldn't ruin her hands, she wouldn't, but then hands were on her and Natasha almost screamed as the action jarred her.

"Sorry my friend," Thor whispered to her and she clung to his arm, fingers digging into the armor. She noticed, of all stupid things really, that his com device wasn't in his ear either.

Leaning her more fully into him, he had brought his hand to cover the wound without touching it and started to murmur in a foreign tongue until his hand shown with a faint blue light. When he stopped Natasha didn't know what to expect, but the pain in her side came back with a vengeance and she sagged into his body where before it had been rigid with surprise. She was in pain, but it wasn't spreading.

She let her head fall against his chest. "Thank you."

Ripping his cape from his armor he had wrapped it around her before guiding her to fully stand and leading her back out into the rubble of the street.

She was grateful he saved her and was even more so that he didn't call her on her lie. All of this mad scientist's robots had claws and she had insisted it was a claw wound to her side. Thor was simply overexcited. Thor had nodded with a smirk and asked whether or not the Hulk had sustained any damage from the battle.

That was the final nail in the coffin she thinks, looking back on it now. It has been five and half years of working together and she's close to him, close to them all. She's as close she can be and she doesn't want to lose it now. The vehemence with which she had told Clint so jarred her, but she knows she meant it so she's here again and strangely comforted by the familiarity.

Just as it was the night before and the nights before that, Steve is lightly dozing in the chair next to Thor's bed, keeping up his vigil as she watches over them both from the shadows.

**Author's note: I hope you all didn't find that too boring. I was on a roll delving into each of them and really couldn't stop, but I promise the next chapter will wrap everything up as much as I can before this turns into a 90 chapter story. **

**Also I'm fully aware I'm not being true to how Odinsleep actually works (in the comics especially though the movie isn't clear at all), but I wanted to use it anyway so forgive me for that.**


End file.
